Blue Box

Episode 11

One of the inherent risks that comes from writing a love triangle is that there is always the chance that you end up making your romantic rival character into too good of a competitor to the true lead of the story. It's one thing for a guy or gal to provide a natural source of drama and emotional intensity so that our main characters can figure themselves out and get to smooching; it's altogether different when a sizeable portion of the audience ends up rejecting the author's intended vision for the relationships altogether. Y'all remember how it went down in Twilight, right? Stephanie Meyer made Jacob such an obviously superior pick at first that she had to commit the kind of character assassination that qualifies as a violation of the Geneva Convention just to make it believable for Bella to end up with ol' Sparkles McCreepo the Vampire. Now, while I don't think Blue Box is going to have Hina fall in love with Taiki and Chinatsu's infant demon spawn just to clear her from the playing field, I can absolutely see a future where the show plays Chinatsu's characterization way too close to the vest for way too long, only for fans throw up their hands and shout, “Okay, fine, Taiki! Just get together with the Pink One already!”

I've gone on at length about the way that Blue Box has struggled, somewhat, to make Chinatsu's inherently closed off nature into dramatically compelling material for its teen romance story, so I won't beat a dead horse yet again (at least, not this time). Instead, I'll simply focus on how good a job “Uncool!” does at continuing to develop Hina into such a realistic, relatable, and adorable young lady. It's doing such a good job that I, as the viewer, am honestly just starting to feel bad that she ended up falling for such a dense doofus as Taiki, and that Chinatsu won't even do her the courtesy of following through on all of the opportunities there have been to just seal the deal, already.

One of Blue Box's greatest strengths has always been its ability to capture a whole spectrum of achingly honest human emotion into just one or two perfect little tableau's of teenage melancholy. This week, that moment comes when Hina has to take a moment to nearly collapse in frustration when Taiki takes her invitation to the upcoming fireworks festival as a signal to invite a whole bunch of other people. I would chastise Taiki more for being so stupid as to ruin Hina's ridiculously obvious plans like that, regardless of whether he actually ever could consider dating her…but I, too, was enough of a dummy at Taiki's age to make basically the same exact unforced error. So, you know. Stones in glass houses, and all that.

The impatient middle-aged man that occupies my brain most of the time is starting to get itchy feet over how long Blue Box is letting its two main characters simmer in the earliest stages of romance, but the dumbass little romantic that used to pilot this meatship of a body is still in there, somewhere, and he's having a pretty good time basking in all of this cozy atmosphere and gentle drama. I can only hope that Chinatsu sees the moves that Hina is making and starts acting like the championship athlete she's ostensibly meant to be. Start blocking those plays, girl! Foul-up some three-pointers before Hina makes it to the goal line! I may not know a single goddamned thing about sports, but I do know how relationships work, and the number one rule remains the same in both fields: If you ain't first, you're last.

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Blue Box is currently streaming on Netflix.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.